The Summer Journalism Institute 2026 Wrap-Up

Hey, Teens in Print Readers!

The 2026 Summer Journalism Institute (or SJI) has come to a close, but before everyone settles into the new school year, we’d like to take a moment to highlight everything our students have accomplished over the past six weeks.

For a third consecutive summer, SJI took place at Suffolk University, in the heart of Downtown Boston. Twenty-six students attended, representing fifteen unique high schools and commuting from fourteen different Boston neighborhoods. Together we went on 11 trips, published 50 articles, released four podcast episodes, and welcomed a record 80 guests to our Showcase! The physical edition of Teens in Print Summer 2026, designed by our students, will soon be available in BPL and BPS locations city-wide.

This year’s theme was Revolutions, defined as “profound societal shifts transforming how people live, think, and relate to one another.” Each week, students explored fields relating to Revolutions and learned how their voices can spark and sustain change in their communities.

We had an incredible range of articles this summer, from The Uncensored Library; A Safe Haven for Journalists by English High graduate Nyzaeh Vasquez, to Educational Style; How High School Dress Codes Disrupt Education, by Isabella Gomes, a rising 10th grader at Edward M. Kennedy Academy. TiPsters chose to explore issues like gentrification and social media addiction, wrote reviews, covered sports news, and published personal essays about culture, language, and history. In total, they wrote eight personal essays, sixteen opinion pieces, and twenty-six news articles. Our Tier 1 & Tier 2 TiPsters were fortunate to have Clare Ablett, a TiP alum of 2023 now studying at Bryn Mawr College, who returned to SJI as a writing Youth Leader. All of our students had the opportunity to beta test and provide feedback on Black Press @200, an open-source digital archive tool for the general public.

Our Newsroom students, led by specialist Cass Clarke, were especially busy this summer. They visited the Boston Public Library to learn about book bannings and dive into archival research. A Newsroom Tipster wrote an insightful review after seeing the musical Moulin Rouge, and two others reported on an Asian Voices of Organized Youth for Community Empowerment (or A-VOYCE) event.

Four incredible college-aged Youth Leaders instructed TiPsters in their multimedia groups.

Returning to lead the video team for a second summer was Vania Almeida, a junior at Mount Holyoke College. Vania’s TiPsters created a 10-minute short film called Déjà Vu, which explores anxiety in teens and is being submitted to several film festivals. Podcasting was led by Cal LaFauci of Boston University, whose TiPsters created four unique episodes for Teens in Print: The After School, and received a private tour of the WBUR recording studio with reporter Arielle Gray. Leading the magazine team was Jacob Kaczorowski, a graduate student at Emerson College, whose students designed the physical edition of Teens in Print Summer ’26. The magazine group also had a great time visiting the offices of The Boston Art Review. SJI’s social media and public relations multimedia group was led by Varsha Vijay from Suffolk University. These students planned our Victorian masquerade-themed Showcase; they stuck to a budget at Dollar Tree, acted in Instagram reels, and set up decor. Thanks to each multimedia group, we were able to welcome 80 guests consisting of family, friends, and teen colleagues from Castle Square Tenants Organization.

In keeping with SJI tradition, the first full group trip of the summer was to Canobie Lake amusement park, where TiPsters bonded over getting dizzy, playing arcade games, and racing to the next ride. Our next excursion was closer to home, a tour of the Museum of African American History in Beacon Hill. Four TiPsters, Ci Ji Liang, Mariana Reyes, Angie Tejeda, and Lillien Manobianco, delivered speeches about their connection to abolitionist history at the same podium where Frederick Douglass once spoke in the African American Meeting House. Then we took a lunchtime trip to Chinatown, where TiPsters enjoyed building community with and learning from their peers at A-VOYCE. For SJI’s annual Day of Service, TiPsters packaged nutritious foods at Community Servings, and visited BAGLY to learn about community resources for LGBTQIA+ youth.

Part of every SJI is equipping our TiPsters with networking experience and exposure to different careers in media. This year’s Career Exploration Day featured a Media and the Mechanics of Revolution Panel hosted by Tipster Alexis Puglisi, with Arielle Gray from WBUR, Jenee Osterheldt from The Boston Globe, and Paris Alston from GBH’s Rooted. Students also participated in a Human Library event, in which each student connected with ten Boston-area media professionals ranging from Alula Hunsen, The UJIMA Project’s Editorial Manager, to Mass Humanities filmmaker, Wes DeShano.

Forty percent of our students this summer go to traditional BPS schools, and receive limited in-school time devoted to the college application process. To help our rising 11th and 12th graders fill this informational gap, SJI’s sixth week is dedicated to our Road to College Curriculum. Students start from the dreaming stage by exploring careers and the degrees they require, refine their requirements for colleges, build college lists, and finally begin drafting their personal statements. These TiPsters closed out SJI by attending campus tours at Emmanuel College and Tufts University.

Lily started her journey with WordPowered as a Writing Youth Leader, while pursuing her bachelors and masters degrees in Publishing from Emerson College. She is now a Teens in Print Associate, where she builds curriculum, facilitates after-school and Summer Journalism Institute programming, and edits teen-authored articles. Lily loves seeing her students become published authors who are motivated to write for their readers and share what matters to them. She is originally from Port Washington, NY.